The Fast and Furious franchise is reaching the end of the road, but rather than wrapping things up with a neat bow, Fast X has been a batshit-crazy whirlwind that had us clapping, shouting, laughing and confused in one seating.
What starts as a simple street racing movie has evolved into a heist franchise and with this new instalment, quite likely a superhero movie because no matter how many explosions and dangerous situations protagonist Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) gets into, he just… never dies. People also seem to raise from the dead and switch loyalties like a light switch so as entertaining as Fast X was, we did leave the theatres with a lot more questions than anticipated.
So, here’s 10 questions we have after watching Fast X – and in case it’s not clear enough, spoilers ahead!
Is Jakob Toretto really dead?
There’s a long list of characters in the Fast and Furious franchise who died in one movie, only to return in another. There’s Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), Han Lue (Sung Kang), and more recently, Gal Gadot’s Gisele Yashar – but more on that later.
Dear Jakob was introduced in Fast and Furious 9 as a revenge-fuelled sibling but learnt a new lesson in family by the end of the film. In Fast X, he’s become the cool and funny uncle with nothing but admiration for his big bro Dom. In his attempt to save Brian (Leo Abelo Perry) from being kidnapped by Jason Momoa’s villant Dante Reyes, Jakob sacrificed himself and died in a fiery explosion. This is a death that we did not see coming as it came out of nowhere, but seeing how dead characters can be revived with a snap of a finger, you’ll have to excuse us if we don’t whip out the tissues just yet.
How many movies will it take to wrap up the Fast and Furious series?
Back in April, Universal stated that Fast X was the first of a two-parter that would wrap up the series. Director Justin Lin, who helmed The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast & Furious 5, Fast and Furious 6 and Fast and Furious 9, was supposed to direct both films, but he cited “creative differences” and departed as director, though he still retains a producer credit.
When director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk, The Transporter) took over the film a week later, the 51-year old director made some uncredited rewrites and completed the movie. Subsequently, franchise lead Vin Diesel indicated that the ending duology might become a three-part finale instead. Leterrier has since supported this, by saying, “You can have high hopes for what’s to come, but you should work and give your best to the one movie that you’re working on. So I will give my best to Part 11 or Part B, and we shall see what happens.”
The question isn’t if it will be two or three more movies, but why stop there? Hollywood has shown that it can milk franchises silly (The Matrix, Transformers), so why put an ending to something that can be easily resurrected?
What’s the deal with Cipher?
Remember how we said folks switched loyalties like a light switch? Cipher (Charlize Theron) is one of them. We saw how the franchise turned villain Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) into an anti-hero – and lest we forget, this is the guy who killed our beloved Han! They turned the man who killed Han into someone we actually support and grew a liking for, but Cipher never got this treatment though.
Cipher killed Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky), the mother of Dom’s son Brian, while he was still a baby! She’s 100% a villain and even worse, she shows no remorse for all the evil things she’s done, but in Fast X, she pulled a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” card (in this case, it’s Dom) and decides to give the Torettos a heads up of what’s to come, which is already strange behaviour for Cipher. We later see her in the same security facility as Letty and helps her escape. Why though? We don’t see how helping Letty escape will benefit her, especially since she seemed to have everything figured out before Letty even stepped foot in the facility, so what’s the deal with Cipher? Maybe the remaining parts will give us some answers.
How did Gisele Yashar survive falling off the plane after sacrificing herself to save Han?
We were all watching the same movie right? Giselle sacrificed herself to save Han in Fast and Furious 6. She literally let go of Han’s hand, fell of a plane, shot the bad guy creeping up on Han and then fell to her death, RIGHT?! We grieved her and so did the family so how is it that she’s still alive all this while? Also, aren’t body retrievals a thing? Does the family just, leave a trail of dead bodies of their supposed family members and not hold a proper funeral? We’ve so many questions here and we would love to believe that the woman is actually Giselle and not her twin sister or a clone cause that would ruffle a few feathers – ours included.
And the bigger question is, does Han know she’s alive? Would you be surprised if he did?
How long have Gisele and Cipher been working together?
Like we said, Cipher had her escape plan before Letty even got captured. She knew when and how to remove her cuffs, which vent to climb out of that will lead to the outside of the facility etc. We later found out that Gisele has been waiting for her escape in a submarine below the ice. The plan clearly was concocted by the two and seeing how Gisele was all smiles to see Cipher break out, we can’t help but assume that there’s some familiarity there.
Where is Mr Nobody?
Played by Kurt Russell, Mr Nobody made his first appearance in Fast and Furious 7, and his last appearance in Fast and Furious 9. While he hasn’t been seen since, his Agency and subordinate, Little Nobody, have been using the talents of Dom and his team, until they have had to disavow the team and chase them down.
In Fast and Furious 9, it was revealed that he saved Han from the Tokyo crash and had arrested Cipher on his plane. He was later attacked by Jakob and Otto and the plane crashed in Montquinto. During the attack, he sent an SOS message to Dom which allowed them to investigate the crash but it is still unknown if he survived the crash. In Fast X, we see his daughter Tess (Brie Larson) take on the role as ‘Little Miss Nobody’ but again, this does not suggest if Mr Nobody is actually dead or just in hiding after the attempted assasination by Jakob. If he is alive though, it just wouldn’t make sense that he would abandon the agency just like that either.
Dwayne Johnson is back!?!
Won’t it be funny if Dwayne Johnson appears in the post credits for Fast X, but ultimately doesn’t make his full fledged return in the next film? Stranger things have happened – just ask Henry Cavill. Dwayne Johnson was so adamant on not returning to the franchise, he even made a huge public hoo-hah about it, so what’s the post credits appearance for? Is Luke Hobbs really back? And what, or rather who, can Dante use against him?
If Hobbs is to blame, why did Dante hunt Dom?
Dante was on a crusade to torture Dom by putting all his loved ones in dangerous situations as part of his revenge. But as it turns out, Dante’s actually really mad at Hobbs. Yeah, Dom and his family stole the vault and the car chase that ensued after caused the car accident, but if it really is Hobbs that pulled the trigger and killed his father. Dante’s been going after the wrong person all along. We know Dante is a little kooky, but someone really needs to vet his plans before he bombs another historical city.
Where are the trio from ‘Tokyo Drift’?
Fast and Furious 9 saw the return of Sean (Lucas Black), Twinkie (Shad Moss), and Earl (Jason Tobin) – you know, the guys who decided to strap a rocket to a car and send it to space, so where are they now? At the end of Fast and Furious 9, they became part of Dom’s family so surely Dante will also hunt them down, so why are they missing?
How does this involve Aimes again?
Aimes (Alan Ritchson) always gave us sus vibes, so it wasn’t as shocking when he revealed himself to be a friend of Dante all along. In the flashback, we saw that Aimes was in the office and had some business to be done with the Reyes family, only for the vault to be stolen. If Aimes is mad about the money and wants some dollar signs to his name, he could do more shady business with another powerful family. Why tag along Dante? What’s in it for him?
Bonus Question: HOW FEASIBLE ARE THESE STUNTS?
Look, we get it we’re watching a movie, but the Fast and Furious franchise just gets more and more creative with their stunts. Can a car ACTUALLY drive down a giant water dam? Can one actually jump from one car to another and score a perfect landing? Most importantly, can you turn a kayak-type boat into a plane just by fuelling it with Vodka bottles!? These movies get more and more ridiculous and as much as we’d love to park our brains at the door – we just can’t help but think – “HUH, WHAT, HOW?!”
Don’t judge a book by its cover, for behind all this makeup, is a geek just like you. To simply put it, superheroes, Star Wars, Harry Potter and all things gore and creepy makes this girly girl swoon.
Si Jia
Natalie
Edwin Teo
